Clear as Mud, and Other Thoughts on the New Reality

I suppose, like a great part of this nation, I’ve been grieving and haven’t realized it. There the usual signs and stages: lack of sleep, lack of appetite, malaise, disinterest, dull and lingering pain, anger, shock, despair.

The scriptures about ‘rejoicing in trials’ keep running through my mind…
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. “ (James 1:2)

“There is cause for rejoicing here. You may for a time have to suffer the distress of many trials; but this is so that your faith, which is more precious than the passing splendor of fire-tried gold, may by its genuineness lead to praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ appears.” (1 Peter. 1:6-7)

Along with the ones about ‘gird yourself’…

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” (Ephesians 6:10-20)

Get that… “fearlessly?” Fearlessly, Fear–less–ly. Behavior that is the exact opposite of what the newly re-elected regime expects of the populace.

What we’re seeing with the Petraeus sexcapades is a classic magician’s misdirection. Two months past the attack on Benghazi, which resulted in the death of an American Ambassador and three others — an attack we are told the White House watched while ordering no response; an attack the mainstream media helpfully blacked-out, at first, then allowed to be spun — we are now being served The Prestige, where all of reality is being turned on its head, and the audience isn’t even sure what it’s seeing, so it simply becomes giddy, and content to be led.

If the nation is content to forget the image of Ambassador Chris Stevens’ naked body being hauled away by a crowd “taking him to the hospital where he later died”; if the nation is completely fine with a truly heinous story of government malfeasance, depraved indifference to human life, political calculation and incompetence being turned into bread and circuses for the mobs, well, then shame on the nation, for choosing to be entertained, once again, by the people who know that all the mob really wants is a show, and is quite pleased to give it to them.

In the meantime, Dear Leader is no longer constrained with the pretense of caring what his constituents want. He’s following the playbook – almost to the letter.

[…]Paula Broadwell’s father asserted “this is about something else entirely, and the truth will come out. There is a lot more that is going to come out. You wait and see. There’s a lot more here than meets the eye.”

That something else has to be bigger than Petraeus; common to all the mysteries of this most impenetrable of presidencies. News under the Obama administration has become coded to a degree unknown outside the annals of Soviet Russia and Mao’s China. In those regimes people talked about numbers, flowers and calendars to indirectly reference what could only be spoken of openly in whispers.

Nothing was what it seemed.

The “The Three-Anti (1951) and Five-Anti campaigns (1952)” were “ostensibly aimed to root out corruption, embezzlement, waste, though they also served to purge opposition to the new Communist government.”

The “Hundred Flowers” (1957) campaign encouraged critics to speak up — so that they could be identified by the State Security apparatus.

The “Destruction of the Four Olds” (1966) is not, as one might think, a scrappage program involving cars made by a division of General Motors but “call to burn and destroy cultural artifacts, Chinese literature, paintings, and religious symbols and temples. People in possession of these goods were punished. Intellectuals were targeted as personifications of the Four Olds, resulting in their persecution.”

The 6521 project is the most recent, occurring only in 2009. It was a “nationwide operation … to ensure ‘social stability’ by suppressing potential dissidents during anniversaries of political significance. The campaign’s name refers to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, and the 10th anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong. ” And there you have it: 6521.

There were wheels within wheels; layers beneath layers; matryoshka dolls within matryoshka dolls.

These innocuous sounding Chinese names were in fact shadow plays aimed at sending a fascist message couched the most innocuous sounding terms. The sheer vagueness of the campaigns lent an edge of terror to them. Nobody knew what they were about and that imbued them with a sinister and crepuscular menace.

Democracies are creatures of the open day. The procedural mechanism of constitutional republic exists to ensure that all the cards are dealt above the table. That the lights always shine. The sign democracy is working is that everybody basically understands what is going now; when things are really about what they say they are about.

By contrast autocracies are thronged with secrets, secret passages, star-chambers and cabals. The characteristic of a conspiratorial political system is that nobody knows who’s next.

Wow. So if Broadwell was right — and obviously, she was in a position to know — then either (a) the Obama administration was secretly violating its own announced policy [remember, the President Obama EO in 2009 banning secret CIA prisons?? – admin], or (b) some in the CIA had gone “rogue,” and the deliberate obfuscation of what happened in Benghazi was a cover-up of this secret violation of the president’s executive order.

If so, then it bears a resemblance to the Iran-Contra scandal, and if it turns out that things went wrong in Benghazi because the folks in charge were too busy chasing poontang to do their actual jobs, then this story is a long way from being over.

Trouble is on the way. America, at least the America that wants to live as free citizens, needs to prepare. Educate yourself, especially on things you’d never thought you’d need to know. Create a safe haven/safety net, if you don’t already have one. Have a plan. Have multiple plans. Connect with other like-minded patriots. Get ready, for the future will be here before you know it.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)